In a semiconductor device manufacturing process where a stacked structure of an integrated circuit is formed on the surface of a substrate such as, for example, a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter, referred to as a “wafer”), a liquid processing such as, for example, a chemical liquid cleaning or a wet etching is performed. In order to remove, for example, a liquid adhering to the surface of the wafer due to such a liquid processing, a drying method using a processing fluid in a supercritical state has recently been used (see e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2013-012538).
In the drying method, in the case where a fine pattern with a high aspect ratio is formed on the surface of the substrate, when a liquid within a recess of the pattern evaporates before the liquid within the recess of the pattern is replaced with the processing fluid in the supercritical state, a pattern collapse occurs. It is required to establish a technique of more reliably avoiding the occurrence of such an event.